An Ode To Female Friendships - And The Magic They Hold

“Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learnt in my long-term friendships with women,” writes Dolly Alderton in her bestselling memoir Everything I Know About Love.

That line lingered with me. Because when I think about the times I felt seen, heard, or deeply connected, it always leads back to my circle of women. And not just my closest trio, but the small, unpolished moments too.

Whether it’s a tipsy pep talk in a club bathroom or debriefs that start in tears and somehow end in laughter, it feels as though we have a bond that transcends backgrounds, interests, or even morals.

This piece is an ode to that magic.

When I think back to playground alliances, the first sleepovers that felt enchanted, or endless hours spent dissecting crushes, I realise those were my very first lessons in intimacy. These early experiences were more than warm memories; they were rehearsals in how to love and be loved. Sharing secrets under blankets, cultivating trust, standing up for each other in the face of teenage drama — those patterns shaped the way I bond with people today.

Of course, not every friendship survived. Betrayals and disappointments were part of the story too. But even in those ruptures, there was a lesson: how to set boundaries, how to forgive, and when to walk away.

Our attachment styles are stitched into our souls from childhood — and I would argue they are not only family-based, but profoundly influenced by friendships as well. In many ways, our first real mirrors are not our parents, but the girls who sat beside us, growing up alongside us.

If childhood friendships were the blueprint, my teenage years and early adulthood provided the foundation to build on it. What strikes me most is that the real magic rarely unfolds in orchestrated moments, but lingers instead in the unpolished, everyday gestures — the ones we almost overlook until they glow in hindsight.

It’s in the club bathroom, where a stranger compliments your eyeliner and reassures you that you’ll survive the heartbreak you’re nursing. Girls you meet in foreign hostels who share their straightener with you. Or the quick smile you give the mother sitting across from you on the tube.

Those moments stretch from fleeting stranger interactions into the everyday with your friends. Whether it’s the spontaneous wine debrief after a horrible date, sending each other TikToks that capture your current situation, or voice notes that make you smile on your work break.

These gestures may appear trivial, but they are the currency of our affection. They remind us that care doesn’t always arrive with grandeur; sometimes it’s disguised as a meme, a shared cigarette on a balcony, or a laugh that cracks open the heaviness of the day.

What makes these moments so powerful is that they are unscripted. There is no pressure to perform, no expectation to polish. Friendship here feels like an exhale: a space where you can stumble, contradict yourself, or simply sit in silence, and still know you are loved.

And often, it’s precisely in these in-between spaces that we realise how healing this bond can be. When the ordinary turns luminous. When the smallest gestures remind us that we are never moving through life alone.

Of course, there’s more to our bond than just the everyday moments. The root of it lies in the way we hold space for each other. A space where intensity is welcome, where emotions don’t have to be filtered down to what seems “reasonable”.

There is something deeply healing in being seen in your rawest state. Not judged, not fixed, but seen. In those friendships, vulnerability doesn’t feel weak, but rather like a kind of sacred currency. An exchange that isn’t transactional: I’ll hold your heartbreak today, and I know you’d carry mine when it’s my turn.

And the beauty is, these spaces are not always solemn. The tears often end in laughter; despair melts into inside jokes; heartbreak finds rhythm in late-night dancing in the living room. Within this holding, transformation happens. Pain is metabolised into resilience. Silence becomes comfort instead of awkwardness.

Perhaps that’s the quiet revolution of female friendships: they teach us that we don’t have to go through anything alone, that love doesn’t only exist in romance, and that strength often looks like softness.

There is a reason we often speak of circles when we talk about women. Something shifts when we gather. Around dinner tables, in group chats that never sleep, on dance floors where we form protective rings around each other. The energy multiplies, almost alchemical, as if our individual strengths interlace into something larger than any one of us could hold alone.

I sometimes think of it as coven energy — not in the literal sense of spells and potions, but in the way a group of women can create an atmosphere that feels enchanted. A safe zone where judgement dissolves, where you can try on different versions of yourself, and where you’re reminded of your power simply by being reflected in the eyes of others.

History, of course, has not always been kind to this. Women gathering in circles were once branded dangerous and disruptive. Perhaps, that instinct was right. There is something quietly radical about women coming together, exchanging knowledge, nurturing each other’s courage, refusing isolation.

And yet, this “coven” is not limited to lifelong friendships or carefully curated circles. Sometimes it emerges in the briefest connections: a stranger who holds your gaze in solidarity, a colleague who whispers encouragement before you step into a meeting, an older woman who tells you, “I’ve been there too.” These threads weave into a larger fabric of proof that we are never really alone in our struggles — nor in our joys.

Maybe that’s why I keep calling it magic. Because what else could describe the invisible force that draws us together, across backgrounds, morals, or distances — and makes us stronger, braver, more ourselves?

When I return to Dolly Alderton’s quote, I realise how deeply it echoes in my own life.

I think of the nights my best friend listened to all of my pain, putting it into perspective, grief slowly dissolving into laughter. Long walks where silence said more than words. I think of the times a single glance across a crowded room told me I wasn’t alone.

All the moments I didn’t perform perfectly, and still felt unconditionally loved.

These moments may never make it into history books, but they are etched into me more deeply than anything else.

So this is my ode to the women who remind me of my own strength when I forget it, to the ones who teach me how to love not perfectly but wholly, and to the strangers whose fleeting kindness leaves an imprint that lingers far longer than they’ll ever know.

To the coven I carry with me, always.

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